The Naruto Journey!

Word Up!!

I'd like to hear from the folks who have been following Naruto since day 1, as well as anyone really who is up to date with the anime and manga.

What do you guys think of the overall development of the story so far?
Is it still heading into the direction from where it started or has the focus of the series shifted over the years?
Has anyone managed to summon a toad by now?

I do think the focus of the story has changed over the years. In the beginning, there was much more long-term plot foreshadowing and planting of seeds for the larger plot, while now we're more distracted by immediate plot to see the big picture plot-wise and theme-wise.

Naruto was actually the main character earlier, while now we've had so many side-character based chapters that he's practically a side character now too. The whole culture aspect of the manga has also been growing smaller and smaller so more focus has been put on the short-term plots. and long-term developments have been muted. So I would say the overall quality has been diminished a bit.

i think that in some ways, the older chapters were more lighthearted and all...some of them may be right about the quality getting worse, but i think that at least there seems to be a long-term and big-picture sort of thing with the storyline since early in the story. and now the plot is advancing towards the climax, so that's a good thing.

^Dude, pilot =/= to what the manga is supposed to be. The pilot was just an advertisement to get serialized. They rarely follow the actual plot of the planned manga (Bleach being one of the exceptions).